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> Last year, the Legislature granted prosecutors subpoena power> when they suspect a child-sex crime has been committed.

Here it was one crime...of course the one, where it's really hard tosay no to such a bill. Then we continue, as is not just to beexpected but a given:

> Daw's bill initially had sought to expand the authority to any> crime, but committee members balked at such broad power last> Friday. His amended bill limits the power to suspected felonies> and two misdemeanors -- cyber-stalking and cyber-harassment.

So now it's child-sex crimes + SUSPECTED felonies + 2 misdemeanors.

In a couple of years, give or take, it'll become standard-operatingprocedure applying at will to *everyone*. And that, ladies andgentlemen, is the problem with taking away basic rights from thepeople. It will always get worse, because nobody wants to lose theirshiny new toys anymore that give you almost god-power over other's.Except, of course, you're in Soviet Russia. There Big Brotherdoesn't subpoena your ISP records but the actual user for, uh,re-education. A bit more of this stuff above and we'll be there too.

I agree with H.L. Mencken when he said:"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."

And to the AG I say get a real warrant if you suspect someone of committing a crime. If you can't prove that to a judge move on to another case.

It is, also, unfortunately the case that a lot of judicial review is of pretty shockingly low quality. "So, an unnamed 'confidential informant' says that there are drugs involved? Where do I sign! And would you prefer a 'knock and announce' or 'no knock' warrant?"

While anybody who attempts to explicitly circumvent procedural safeguards is to be viewed with deepest suspicion, and stymied where possible, the fact that seemingly robust procedural safeguards can quietly rot away from the inside, without any especially visible outside change, is probably ultimately more dangerous.

For instance, any attempt to use military units in policing would certainly attract notice, and probably cause considerable outrage. The fact that nominally-civilian SWAT teams, with military weapons and training, execute more than 40,000 raids a year isn't even news(except when some 'isolated incident' of their raiding the wrong house and perforating someone's unarmed grandmother makes local news).

This is the same Utah that is about to pass a law stating that a woman who has a miscarriage "recklessly" is liable to a murder charge [rhrealitycheck.org]. The legislature probably relishes the idea of mandatory pregnancy testing in order to properly enforce the law...